Out of 200 think tanks worldwide covered in our 2016 report, more than 60 received the maximum possible five-star rating, reflecting their exemplary transparency when it comes to publicly disclosing their sources of funding. These think tanks use their websites to disclose in great detail who funds them, with what sums, and for what research projects. They set the gold standard for the field as a whole.

The broad geographical spread of five-star institutions highlights that think tanks can achieve high levels of transparency in a variety of settings. Highly transparent think tanks can be found in all major continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America.

There is significant momentum toward greater transparency. In our December 2013 baseline, only 12 think tanks had 5-star transparency. The number of highly transparent think tanks has more than quintupled, since then. We expect that this trend towards more transparency will accelerate, and several institutions listed above have joined to become highly transparent even though they were not covered by our original study.